Monday, March 17, 2014

Modern Dance Liisa Wilson's Lake



Lisa Wilson’s Lake.

Water in many ways defines us, after all we are 50% water, so when a chorographer decides to create  modern ballet to be performed in water the result must be anything but normal.

Lisa Wilson’s modern dance Lake requires the entire stage to be literally flooded to create an environment akin to an Australian outback lake. It creates a sense on one hand of the benign and at the same time fearful. The ballet like life itself mirrors and reflects our joys and disappointment.

Three dancers Kristina Chan, Hsin-Ju Chin and Timothy Ohl turn in stunning performances, both in their physical energy and grace. The entire ballet takes place in water to symbolise a lake  requiring considerable strength and as anyone who has walked through water will testify. Their movements create a new kind of texture and patterns with the displaced water their bodies create.

This dance company hails from Queensland, so dancing in water up there would be fine, how compatible the dance was in the terms of warmth here in Hobart’s Theatre Royal is another question. But they survived much to their credit.

This work is highly original in choreograph and action keeping the audience on their seats edge. At times I felt that they must be drinking a lot of water as the level went down as they threw each other vigorously around. It would be possible to drown even in this shallow water.

Lisa Wilson with twenty year international career behind her has yet again presented a distinctive and physically demanding piece of theatre

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